I note that Great Northern have been cancelling alternate trains yet again today. Effectively they are running only hourly services - and this is not the first time this has happened at weekends. Another attempt to boost their profits at the expense of passengers I suspect.

Today the ticket machine at Brookmans Park was 'Out of Service' so was unable to buy a Travelcard. Went to Moorgate but wasn't able to buy the ticket there as ticket office closed so had to go back to Finsbury Park so I could buy my Travelcard.So, tip to remember is to break your journey at Finsbury Park if you're unable to buy a ticket at weekends as they seem to always have manned offices.

I note that Great Northern have been cancelling alternate trains yet again today. Effectively they are running only hourly services - and this is not the first time this has happened at weekends. Another attempt to boost their profits at the expense of passengers I suspect.

This seems to be fairly regular now. I saw a few tweets suggesting that there is no spare capacity in the number of drivers employed and that the company is relying on overtime to cover basic shifts, but that might have been just an angry commuters venting. A grab from the front page of this site showing the next few services this morning shows more delays and a cancellation. Not an unusual sight these days.

This seems to be fairly regular now. I saw a few tweets suggesting that there is no spare capacity in the number of drivers employed and that the company is relying on overtime to cover basic shifts, but that might have been just an angry commuters venting.

A fairly level-headed rail enthusiast site (the name of which I've forgotten) backs this up. Among the many points it discussed about the background to the ongoing Southern debacle, it mentioned the same management group were taken aback by the shortage of drivers they inherited on the Great Northern when they took that on.

In due course, when the GN gets hooked onto the Thameslink spine, any Southern troubles will become ours too!

Ironically, since privatisation of our railways, government/Department for Transport micro-management has become an accepted norm, whilst in BR days the government interface with the railways was the BR Board.

This morning the ticket office was closed, the ticket machine was out of order and the 7.42 to Moorgate was cancelled.This evening three out of four trains from Highbury & Islington were cancelled in the later evening rush hour- the 18.51, the 19.06 and the 19.46.Great Northern has cynically cut the number of staff to below the necessary minimum to run the service in order to maximise their profits. And what did the Government's Rail Minister do when problems surfaced on Southern Railways? She resigned and ran away rather than facing up to her responsibilities.

I think it would probably be better if they just ran an hourly service at weekends and hopefully no cancellations! At least then, people would have more idea of what time trains would be running.To think there were a lot of complaints about FCC but this lot seem to be worse.

It's ironic that at a time when the Tube is introducing new services, grasping Great Northern is abolishing ours! I wonder how travellers got home from London tonight. It looks like nearly every train was cancelled.

I spoke to someone who works for GN Rail this week and they said Driver jobs aren't advertised. A friend also said he'd searched recently to see the possibilities of becoming a driver but couldn't find jobs advertised anywhere either.I know 'crew' probably means more than just the drivers but that would be a start.